SAN ANTONIO — Retired Col. Thomas E. Ruffini, who for 30 years served in the Air Force and later helped guide Kelly AFB through the first leg of its transformation to what is now Port San Antonio, died June 12 at 74.

Ruffini grew up in Massachusetts, the second son of five children raised in a traditional Italian-American family. His father, a policeman, died when Ruffini was 16.

“We were each other's best friends,” brother James R. Ruffini said. “We shared a room from the time we were infants to the time I left to go away to school.”

After his brother, who was three years older, went to Bridgewater State College, 20 miles away from their home at Plymouth, Ruffini followed him after graduating from high school.

“My dad wanted us to go to school ... was absolutely convinced that being a schoolteacher was the ultimate job for security,” James Ruffini said.

Although both sons did plan on teaching, Ruffini ultimately followed in his brother's footsteps when he went into the military, joining the Air Force after graduation.

He completed officer training school at then-Lackland AFB, going on to work in personnel and training positions in Virginia, Japan and other locations. Ruffini also served during the Vietnam War.

“Neither one of us intended to go in and stay in,” James Ruffini said. “Tom planned to come back, but he got ... transferred around the world and really enjoyed it.”

Ruffini met his future wife after his time in Vietnam. Stationed at then-Randolph AFB, he accepted an invitation to dine with a fellow serviceman and his wife.

“I was on my way to California and I stopped in San Antonio to visit a cousin,” said his wife, Cheryl “Cheri” Yeager Ruffini. “She was married to an Air Force man,” the same one who invited Ruffini to dinner.

The couple married four months later.

After leaving Randolph, the couple lived in England, Alabama and Nebraska before moving to Washington, D.C., where Ruffini served first as the director of personnel and then chief of staff for the Air Force's office of investigations. He retired in the early 1990s, settling in San Antonio.

When Kelly AFB was targeted for closure in 1995, Ruffini was invited by retired Air Force Brig. Gen. Paul Roberson to serve on the Kelly redevelopment team, later the Greater Kelly Development Corp., of which he became deputy executive director.

“Tom was a very, very bright guy,” James Ruffini said. “The level of confidence people had in him was exhibited in the kind of assignments he got — those given to people whose judgment was above reproach.”